Merida

In the early 1900s, Merida reportedly had more millionaires per capita than any city on Earth. The source of the wealth was a cactus relative called henequen — a spiny agave whose fibres made the rope that tied together global shipping. Merida is the capital of Yucatan state, home to roughly 920,000 people in the city proper and 1.3 million in the metropolitan area, built literally on top of the ancient Maya city of T'ho using stones pulled from its pyramids. Wikipedia leads with colonial architecture and the 'White City' nickname. What it undersells is one of the most complete economic succession stories in the Americas.

Henequen — nicknamed 'green gold' — made hacienda owners spectacularly rich through the late 19th century. But the fibre was a monoculture waiting for disruption. Synthetic rope arrived after World War II and collapsed the industry within a generation. Merida could have become another post-commodity ghost city. Instead, it rebuilt around diversification: manufacturing, tourism, jewelry exports ($199 million in 2024), aerospace turbine components ($524 million), and apparel. Yucatan's international sales hit $1.82 billion in 2024, up 20% year-on-year, with Merida accounting for $1.06 billion.

The more remarkable statistic is safety. Merida ranks as the second-safest city in the Americas, and Yucatan's homicide rate runs nine times below the national average. In a country where other cities of comparable size struggle with cartel violence, Merida maintains a stability that attracts remote workers, retirees, and now nearshoring manufacturers relocating supply chains from Asia. The $25-30 billion Maya Train, completed in late 2024, plugs Merida into a regional rail network designed to pull investment further south.

The biological parallel is ecological succession. When a forest fire destroys a monoculture, the first organisms to recolonise are pioneer species — lichens, grasses, fireweed — that create conditions for a more diverse ecosystem to establish itself. Merida's post-henequen trajectory follows the same pattern: the monoculture crashed, pioneer industries established new niches, and today's economy is far more diversified than the green-gold era that made it rich. The result is a city that survived its own boom-bust cycle by doing what mature ecosystems do — replacing fragile dominance with resilient diversity.